Covid-19: France exceeds the milestone of one million cases
France exceeded the symbolic threshold of one million people infected with the new coronavirus on Friday.
The number of patients hospitalized due to Covid-19 now stands at 15,008, including 2,441 in intensive care.
Christophe SIMON / AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
This Friday, October 23, France exceeded the symbolic threshold of one million people infected with the new coronavirus, after a new daily record of contaminations which comes against a background of tightening restrictions across the country.
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According to the latest report from Public Health France, the country has identified 42,032 contaminations due to the coronavirus in the last 24 hours.
This brings the total to 1,041,075 people infected with the virus that appeared in China last December.
The number of new cases identified this Friday marks a new daily record after that recorded the day before (41,622 cases).
Faced with this "second wave" of the epidemic, France has decided
to extend from this Friday midnight the curfew system
already implemented since last week in Île-de-France and in eight metropolitan areas ( Aix-Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Toulouse, Montpellier, Grenoble, Saint-Étienne and Rouen).
In total, 54 departments as well as French Polynesia will now be concerned, or 46 million French people, including in certain rural areas with low population density.
Seized urgently, the Council of State, the highest administrative court of the country, validated this Friday the imposition of the curfew, considering that it did not bring "
a manifestly illegal attack on fundamental freedoms
".
A first assessment of the curfew next week
President Emmanuel Macron again warned the French that they would have to live with the coronavirus "
at best until next summer
".
“
The question is how to live with the virus in this period.
In the phase we are in, we have no other choice, given the number of infections per day, than to slow down, that is to say to reduce our social life to the maximum, limit contacts to break its circulation,
”he added, adding that it was“
too early
”to say whether containment measures would be necessary again.
A first assessment of the effect of the curfew will be done in the middle of next week.
With 298 additional deaths recorded in the last 24 hours, France now has 34,508 deaths linked to the coronavirus.
The number of
patients hospitalized due to Covid-19
now stands at 15,008, including 2,441 in intensive care, respectively 976 and 122 people more than Thursday, according to data from health authorities.
The positivity rate for tests continues to climb, from 14.3% Thursday to 15.1% this Friday, according to Public Health France.
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To listen: Curfew in France: “The coming month will be one of all dangers” for the economy
(
With
AFP)
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